


Three Holts Went Up, One Came Back

by ElfGrove



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 08:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11123607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElfGrove/pseuds/ElfGrove
Summary: Archiving from my tumblr flash fics. Fanart Response Ficlet. -- "The Galaxy Garrison mission to the distant moon of Kerberos is missing, and all crew members, including brother and sister team Matthew and Kaitlynn Holt, are believed to be dead.Role-swap AU Pidge: Three Holts went up, one comes back."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A response fic to fanart by chaoslindsay: http://chaoslindsay.tumblr.com/post/150457094939  
> #KATIE SACRIFICES HERSELF TO PROTECT HER BROTHER FROM THE GALRA GLADIATOR PITS
> 
> Fic originally posted here: http://elfgrove.tumblr.com/post/150480237998

“Do you know how long you’ve been gone?”

Katie jerked against the restraints again, feeling tears threaten to surface. _She’d gotten away. She’d finally gotten away. Gotten back to Earth, and she was already a prisoner again. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go._

_No tears. Never tears. Tears were weakness, and weakness was punished. Severely._

“I don’t know,” She growled, feeling her voice still hoarse and cracking from disuse. “Months? Years?”

_No time for tears. No time for questions. No time. They couldn’t be far behind her._

“Look! There’s no time!” She strained upwards, trying to meet someone’s, anyone’s eyes through the visors of the hazmat suits, but they kept glancing away anytime her eyes found theirs. “Aliens are coming here for a weapon. They’re probably on their way. They’ll destroy us! We have to find Voltron!”

_She had to find it first. Use it to destroy Them. To rescue Matt and Dad._

“Sir, take a look at this,” One of the men that wouldn’t meet her eyes tapped on the metal that had replaced her right arm from just above the elbow and on down. “It appears this arm has been replaced with a cyborg prosthetic.”

_This was absurd. Didn’t they understand? A real danger was coming right on her heels! Why wouldn’t they listen?!_

Commander Iverson’s familiar voice spoke calmly, ignoring everything she’d said up until now, “Put them under until we know what that thing can do.”

She pulled against the restraints again, eyes bulging when she saw one of the faceless staffers pick up an anesthetic administrator.

“Don’t put me under!” She felt her voice crack as she tried to scream the protest and her vocal cords just couldn’t keep up, “No! There’s no time!”

Someone grabbed the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her back down and exposing her neck like an animal for sacrifice.

_She wouldn’t die this way. She’d sworn not to die this way._

_No. No. Nonononononono…_

 

* * *

 

When she woke again, she was in a bed in a wooden room. The air was dry, and there was no sign of any medical apparatus. She sat up swiftly, blood rushing to her head in an unpleasant pounding, reminding her how long it had been since she’d last eaten. She wasn’t tied down, and there didn’t seem to be anyone from the Garrison present. _That was an improvement. Sort of._ She’d thought the Garrison would help. Would give her resources to find Voltron before **_THEY_** arrived.  She knew she’d need resources to find the weapon, but if they weren’t going to help…

A door squeaked as it opened, and she turned, hand unconsciously reaching for something to use as a weapon to defend herself.

A vaguely familiar looking boy stood in the doorway, water bottle in one hand and a bundle of clothes slung across the arm that held the door.

“Good morning.”

“How long has it been?” Her voice was still a broken mess, “Since I landed?”

“Four, maybe five hours. The sun should be coming up soon,” He crossed the room slowly, making clearly telegraphed and deliberate movements. “You probably need more sleep.”

“There’s no time,” She coughed, right hand going to her throat, letting the coolness of the metal help ease the pain there.

“I kind of got that,” He came closer, offering her the water bottle.

She accepted it, and started drinking it gratefully. Her eyes tracked him as he placed the bundle of clothes on the bed near her feet, carefully not touching her.

“Do you remember me?”

She squinted, focusing on his face again. He was definitely familiar. _She knew him, but it had been before. That seemed like a lifetime ago. How long had she been gone from Earth? Would she recognize anyone that she should? It could have been years. It felt like years. What did she even look like now?_

The boy grimaced slightly, a thinning of lips and crinkling of the eyes as he looked down accepting that she didn’t know him after all. _It clicked then, the wide shoulders, long eyelashes, and midnight black hair._

“Takashi… Shirogane?” She put the bottle down on the bed, the empty plastic crinkling loudly as her fist tightened over it, “You’re Matt’s friend, from the Garrison.”

“Yeah.”

She felt her heart sink, as her failure renewed itself, “You were hoping I would be Matt.”

His head jerked upward sharply, “No. I was hoping you were alive. _All of you…_ Any of you.”

“They’re alive.” She shoved off the covers, reaching for the clothes he’d brought, eager to get out of the rags from her time in the alien prison. “They have to be.”

She started shedding garments, stripping with the nonchalance gained from the lack of privacy of being a prisoner forced to share a cell with a half dozen other creatures at any given time. It only occurred to her to be modest when she glanced over to see him facing the wall, tips of his ears red.

“Sorry,” She mumbled.

“Don’t worry about it,” He shifted in clear discomfort. “Are you done?”

She pulled up the new pants, zipping them closed over the vest and turtleneck that covered most of the ugly and jagged scars that littered her skin now. She found Matt’s glasses, the extra pair she’d been carrying in case of emergencies when they’d been captured and that she’d managed to hang onto in the aftermath as a sort of good luck charm. Those, she carefully slipped into a pouch on the belt. “Done.”

He turned back, looking her up and down carefully, “Sorry, it’s a bit big.”

“Anything’s better than what I was wearing. Thank you, Takashi.”

“Shiro.”

“Huh?”

“My friends call me Shiro.”

She smiled wanly. _Friend. How long since she’d heard that word?_ “Shiro,” She corrected herself.

“Come with me.”

She followed him out of the room, through a messy living room with a collection of boys all around the same age as them, sacked out on any available surface that could be pressed into service as a makeshift bed. He led her out the front door of the small cabin to a vista of the mountains and desert in the early pre-dawn light.

“Oh.” Fresh air hit her lungs. Not the recycled air of a space ship, nor the stifling air of an asteroid mine. _Fresh air. Earth. Home. She was home._ And for a wonderful, crucial, fragile moment, she was free. She swallowed down a great lungful of it as the sun began to rise, “Oh.”

“It’s good to have you back,” Shiro placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and she turned slowly to meet his gaze.

Beyond him, there was nothing to see but the simple cabin and acres of untouched land. _Free._ Her eyes shifted back to meet his, so gentle. She had almost forgotten what gentleness looked like, “It’s good to be back.”

His voice was cautious, clearly trying to be supportive rather than demanding information, “So what happened out there? Where were you?”

She shook her head. She had a basic understanding of what had happened. They’d been captured and separated. She’d been a prisoner of the aliens. She’d escaped, and come back to Earth ahead of Them. There was a weapon called Voltron that They wanted, and that she would get if only to keep it out of Their hands. _Something horrible had happened in the middle there. Repeatedly. Continuously._

“I wish I could tell you,” She lowered her head, pinching the bridge of her nose as she fought down tears and tremors. Her still human arm wrapped around her waist, fingers reaching to fidget with Matt’s glasses inside the pouch, a habit now. _She couldn’t let the weakness within consume her. Couldn’t give it an outlet, lest it take over her outside as well. Exposing weakness meant death._ “My head’s still pretty scrambled. I was on an alien ship, but somehow I escaped… It’s all a blur.”

Shiro stepped closer, she felt his body heat in the coolness of the desert before the sun rose, and she turned just slightly into that warmth. _He was familiar, and familiar was something so long distant it was hard not to reach for every shred of it she could._

She forced herself to think, to not cling to small comforts. _They’d found her within hours of her coming down. They’d gotten her away from Commander Iverson who had refused to listen to her warnings,_ “How did you know to come save me when I crashed?”

“That was,” He glanced back at the cabin. “That was Keith.”

“…Who?”

“You,” He dropped his hand from her shoulder reluctantly. “You should come see this Katie.”

“Pidge,” She countered abruptly. _No weakness. No comforts. No clinging. Not right now. She couldn’t afford it._

“What?”

“Pidge Gunderson.” _She’d use her Mother’s maiden name for now. It was just for now. She couldn’t be a Holt until she’d saved her family. Brought them home, earned her name back. Earned the right to look her Mother in the eye again. The name was a reminder of what she owed her Mother. To bring the Holt men home safely, or die trying._ “Katie Holt hasn’t made it back from Kerberos yet.”

Shiro looked stricken, “‘Yet’.”

She nodded, “I have to go back for them.”

“Okay.” Shiro nodded. “I’m with you… Pidge.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additionally, some unfinished throw away lead up text that I didn’t post (mostly because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to switch up Keith and Shiro/Pidge’s roles in this scenario or not. Any version of the universe, Shiro is probably still a suck it up and follow orders/lead within rules type, but what’s Keith’s reasons to be AWOL?).

Shiro’s eyes widened with realization of what they were looking at coming down from the sky. _An alien ship. Matt had always suspected…_ He was already turning away from his nightly vigil as he called to Lance and Hunk, “We have **_got_** to see that ship.”

Lance followed without argument, but he prodded Hunk who had already been against sneaking out of the Garrison to get some air before the announced lock down of the barracks.

“Hunk, come on!”

“This is the _worst_ team-building exercise ever,” Hunk grumbled.

_He was probably right. They would all be in trouble for this one… If they got caught._

That was it, the three of them were running towards the crash site in the desert test flight range beyond the Garrison buildings. _Everything was going to change tonight. Maybe there would be new hope for the Holts. He’d take any hint of news at this point._

 

* * *

 

They huddled together on a cliff overlooking the crashed alien ship. Lance stared through the night-vision binoculars, providing running commentary on the Garrison staff swarming the thing already. They’d arrived in vehicles with equipment, it was no wonder they’d beaten three cadets on foot.

Shiro had re-opened Matt’s old laptop, the one he’d promised to keep running the SETI subroutine on and regularly kicking off Matt’s own research programs, scanning the stars with his handmade receivers and running the other boy’s specialized algorithms on the SETI data. Shiro might not completely understand the data being processed, but he knew Matt would want him to keep running the project in his absence. He’d go over the data when he got back. But now wasn’t the time for the regular routines. He clicked through subfolders, searching for the collection of scripts and worms he knew Matt had stored on the machine.

“Who. Is. _She_ ,” Lance questioned suggestively.

“Lance,” Shiro deadpanned in mild annoyance. “Come on, help me out here.”

It was Hunk who finally pointed out the right folders and took the computer from him with a sigh, “It’ll be faster if I run them. I can probably modify them on the fly if I have to.”

Soon, Hunk had the interior cameras of the Garrison mobile station displayed on the small screen and all three of them huddled around to see a person in tattered clothes struggling as they were strapped down to a medical gurney.

“Hey! What are you doing?!”

“Calm down, Holt.” Commander Iverson’s familiar voice echoed over the live feed, “We just need to keep you quarantined until we run some tests.”

Shiro’s eyes widened, focusing in on that familiar shock of wavy golden blonde hair.

“You have to listen to me! They destroy worlds!” Holt’s features were obscured by the low resolution video and staffers in hazmat suits, but the struggling limbs and the voice breaking scratchily as they became more panicked was all the detail they really needed. “Aliens. Are. Coming!”

“The Kerberos mission,” Shiro was already starting to stand up, eyes narrowing on the open door below that must lead to where his friend was being held.

“Wait, which one of them is it?” Lance grabbed his ankle before he could do something completely foolish, like barrel directly down the hill straight into armed Garrison guards. “Can you tell?”

Hunk spoke in halting realization, “Where’s the rest of the crew?”


End file.
